The cleansing craze

Fasting might help you drop a few pounds fast, but detoxification is just a popular myth, experts say

Taylor Troll prepares fresh juice in North Vancouver on January 7, 2014.

Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost
, PNG

What motivates a healthy, slim 20-year-old to spend a month on a detoxifying cleanse, drinking juice and eating nothing but raw nuts? "After the holidays I didn't feel like I had been eating well and had a fair amount (of alcohol) to drink," said Taylor Troll, a business student at Langara College who weighs a perfectly normal 158 pounds.

Troll is not alone. Like millions of other North Americans, Troll is starting the new year with a cleanse, intended to purge the body of toxins and waste, or as a crash diet for weight loss. The cleanse movement has been around for decades, but juice cleansing has gained enormous traction in the past five years, especially since the release of the documentary film Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Filmmaker Joe Cross lost 100 pounds in the course of the film with a juice fast followed by a dramatic shift to a vegetarian diet.

"Watching that was really eye-opening, so I decided to try it for a month and see how I feel," Troll said. "I wanted to detox."

Troll's mother Christina Prevost and sister Alex Troll are in the process of opening a new juice bar in North Vancouver, he said. "So they are part of the movement."

The recipe for Taylor's juice - a blend of collard, kale, apple, Romaine, spinach and dandelion greens - was designed for him in an hour-long consultation with a naturopath.

"We focus on the vegetables for the cleanse rather than a lot of fruit, which can add a lot of sugar," said Alex, who is making the juice blends at home while the permits for The Juicery are finalized.

The fruits and vegetables are cold-pressed, rather than blended. Proponents say pressing prevents oxidation of the nutrients and enzymes.

"I have five juices a day and eat nuts throughout the day," he said. "I've already noticed that I've been able to stop drinking coffee and the juice gives me a lot of energy and awareness."

The most notable function of the juice cleanse and its more radical cousin, The Master Cleanse, is frequent bowel movements, supposedly a sign of colonic cleansing.

The Master Cleanse and Lemonade Diet was originally popularized by huckster Stanley Burroughs, who was eventually convicted of practising medicine without a licence and tried for the death of one of his patients. Burroughs's cleanse involves a 10-day regimen of water, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, Grade B maple syrup and laxatives.

After the cleanse period, followers are to adopt a diet rich in nuts, fresh fruit and vegetables, which is where any sensible person would start, according to dietitian Gloria Tsang.

A fast or cleanse is unlikely to have a physical benefit, but making a dramatic break with bad eating habits may be a psychological benefit for those embarking on a new healthier diet, she said.

But be sensible. "Going on a 10-day fast with laxatives isn't going to make you any healthier," she said.

Despite its roots as a quackish cure for "all illness," the Master Cleanse remains popular as a crash diet for weight loss promoted by celebrities such as Beyonce and Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow later denounced The Master Cleanse and admitted that she hallucinated while on the program.

Compared with fasting, expensive vitamins, enemas and popular laxatives such as senna, juice fasting is among the "least crazy" cleanses, said Tsang. "But blending (whole) fruits and vegetables would be far better, because then at least you get the fibre, too."

People who are diabetic or obese and at risk of diabetes should avoid fasting and juice cleanses, which can lead to hypoglycemia, she advised.

The idea of using periodic fasting to cleanse the body has roots in ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine. Light fasting is part of many major religious traditions, said Sanjoy Ghosh, a biologist who studies fat, metabolism and obesity at the University of British Columbia.

"Christians have Lent, Muslims have Ramadan and Hindus, which I am one, are supposed to fast every Thursday or Saturday, depending on which part of India you come from," said Ghosh.

"People have believed this for thousands of years; it did not come out of nowhere," he said. "There must have been observed benefits."

Aside from the spiritual benefits, there is ample evidence that short periods of fasting promote long life and health, he said.

"Caloric restriction is known to increase the lifespan of every living thing on this planet," he said. "That is well known in science."

Ghosh says for young healthy people a short fast, 12 to 14 hours or even a few days, is unlikely to be harmful. But, like Tsang, he warned that people with health problems or physical jobs should not undertake unsupervised fasting, which could lead to sudden loss of consciousness due to low blood sugar.

Other practices - from vitamin fasts to laxatives and enemas - range from pointless to dangerous.

Vitamin cleanses are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human physiology. The body requires the presence of food - especially fats and fibre - in the digestive tract to absorb most vitamins.

"Vitamins combined with fasting does nothing," he said.

The practice of colonic cleansing, less glamorously known as a home enema, has been a staple of alternative medicine since the 17th century, but it has no proven benefits and considerable risks.

Modern enema practitioners favour solutions of sea salt and water to cleanse the lower intestinal tract, or coffee to stimulate the liver. The more likely result is an imbalance of electrolytes that can cause cardiac arrest or bowel perforation. A home enema will certainly disrupt intestinal biota, the beneficial microbes that live in a delicate balance in the human gut, help us digest food, absorb nutrients and prevent the growth of harmful bacteria. "What an enema does is disturb that ecology," he said. There is no way to selectively flush out potentially harmful pathogens without destroying the good microbes that hold the bad actors in check.

The cleanse best supported by science to promote good health is both boring and inexpensive, according to Tsang and Ghosh.

Fibre - in the form of fruits, vegetables and legumes such as lentils, beans and chickpeas - promotes beneficial gut flora, aids nutrient absorption, lowers cholesterol and reduces the risk of nearly every major illness from colorectal cancer to heart attack.

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